Best Place to Get Down on the Farm (in the Middle of the City) New York 2010 - Brooklyn Kitchen

When it comes to green space, New York is not found wanting—besides Central Park and Prospect Park, there are gardens, cemeteries, playgrounds, and a plethora of weedy vacant lots. Still, you wouldn't exactly call it bucolic. Nevertheless, there's a move afoot that has Flatbush Avenue looking a lot like Tobacco Road. Red Hook has sprouted fields of vegetables, Bushwick restaurants grow their own produce, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden offers tutorials in rabbit-rearing and beekeeping. But the Brooklyn Kitchen in Williamsburg, a countrified culinary emporium, may be the epicenter of all this pastoral energy, aiming to teach hipsters how to go farm-to-table, right in their own backyard—or on their own tar-papered roof, or fire escape. Recent classes include "Jam-tastic," "Urban Chicken Keeping," "Brewing Beer at Home," "Pie Intensive," and "Summer Dinner Party: The South WILL Rise Again, Damnit!" And, downstairs, there's a general store where you can purchase supplies for all your canning, pickling, preserving, smoking, and brewmastering needs. You'll need to go elsewhere for that chicken feed.